The School Trip Letter: Deadlines, Inhalers and a Late Pick-Up
Nadia's son Kofi, aged 10, brings home a letter from Parkfield Primary School about a trip to the Weston Museum of Transport on Thursday 12 June. The letter says: 'Please return the signed consent slip and £14 by Friday 6 June. Children need a packed lunch, a named water bottle and comfortable shoes. No money is needed on the day - the gift shop will be closed. Coaches leave at 8:15am and return to school at 4:30pm. Children who use inhalers must hand a named inhaler to their class teacher on the morning of the trip.' Someone has added in pen at the bottom: 'We still need two parent helpers - ring the office.' Nadia works 9am to 3pm every Thursday, cannot take the day off, and Kofi uses a blue inhaler morning and night. She has £14 in cash but no cheque book and no printer.
1. Nadia asks what she has to send and when. List what she must do before the trip and say what she does not need to send.
Read the worked answer
Before the trip: the signed consent slip and the £14, both by Friday 6 June. Cash is fine - the letter says '£14', not 'cheque' - so having no cheque book does not matter, but she should ask the office for a spare slip because she cannot print one from home. Having no printer is a small obstacle, not a reason to miss the deadline.
On the morning of Thursday 12 June: a named inhaler handed to the class teacher, a packed lunch, a named water bottle and comfortable shoes.
The trap is the inhaler. It is not covered by the 6 June deadline and it is not something she can send in a bag the week before - it has to be handed to the teacher on the day, so it belongs on a separate reminder. The other trap is assuming money is needed: the gift shop is closed, so no spending money is required.
The reasoning is that you separated 'before Friday 6 June' from 'on the day', and noticed that the absence of a printer changes how she returns the slip but not whether she can.
2. Nadia says she will finish work at 3pm and collect Kofi at 3:15. What do you tell her?
Read the worked answer
That will not work. The letter says the coaches return to school at 4:30pm, so at 3:15 there will be no coach and no Kofi at school. She would be an hour and a quarter early and would probably worry unnecessarily when the office could not tell her where he was.
She has two realistic options: arrange for someone else to collect him at 4:30, or ask the office whether the after-school club runs that day and whether he can go straight into it on returning.
Point out the limits of what the letter tells you. It gives a return time to school, not a pick-up point, and it says nothing about late collection or after-school care. Those are questions for the office - do not invent an answer.
So the useful reply is precise about the time and honest about the gap: 4:30 at school, and anything beyond that needs to be confirmed with the school rather than assumed.
3. Write the three or four sentence note Nadia could send to the school office. Include the two things the office needs to know.
Read the worked answer
A workable answer:
'Dear Office, My son Kofi is in Year 6 and is going on the Weston trip on Thursday 12 June. I have signed the consent slip and will send the £14 in cash on Monday, as I cannot print the slip at home. Kofi uses a blue inhaler, which I will hand to his teacher that morning. I am sorry that I cannot help as a parent helper, as I am at work on Thursdays. Yours sincerely, Nadia'
The reasoning behind it matters more than the wording. It opens with 'Dear Office' rather than 'Hi', because it is going to a school. Each sentence carries one point only, so nothing gets missed: the trip, the money and slip, the inhaler, the helper request. It names the child and the class, because an office dealing with a whole year group needs to know which Kofi. It answers the pen-and-ink request for helpers instead of silently ignoring it. And it gives the reason for the missing printer without turning the note into a long apology.